CALL FOR PAPERS: “Thinking through the Body”: The Passion of the Martyrs in Medieval Art, College Art Association Annual Conference 2016, Washington DC, 3 – 6 February 2016.
In his groundbreaking works on somaesthetics, Richard Shusterman challenges the nature of sensory experience in knowledge, memory, behavior, and self-fashioning, overcoming traditional dualisms about mind and body.
Taking this approach, the session seeks papers that reflect on sensory and bodily comprehension and somatic response to medieval artworks and the ways in which these were meant to be physically experienced. It aims to examine Passion representations—the Pietà, the tortured bodies of Christ, of female and male martyrs, and of victims of violent behavior—in relation to the viewers’ bodily involvement.
How do the materials (stone, wood, pigment, color, precious stones,) scale, and media of the artwork evoke somatic experience? How were late medieval artworks devised to stimulate the senses and cognitive processes or to evoke eroticism? What is the relationship between visual and material excess and viewer perception?
Please send abstracts to Mati Meyer and Assaf Pinkus. All participants must become members of CAA. For format, guidelines, eligibility, etc., consult the CAA website.
Deadline: 8 May 2015.
Source: H-ArtHist